Awardees

Best Paper

1st Efficient Autonomous Flight in Interactive and Extreme Environments 
Valentin Gaucher, Wenlong Zhang; Arizona State University

2nd Exact-Safe MPPI: Safety-Aware Sampling with Nonsmooth Control Barrier Functions 
Alexander Coker, Leilei Cui; University of New Mexico

3rd Collaborative Aquatic Robotics for Environmental Monitoring 
Fengming (Mingming) Cao; BASIS Schools

Best Poster

1st Spiderbot: A Highly Articulated Quadruped with Vision-Free Terrain Adaptation 
Harshvardhan Sivasubramanian, Vijayramsriram Sathanandhan, Hamid Marvi; Arizona State University

2nd  PhysicsLENS: Diagnosing Physical Property Blindness in Video Generation Models 
Isaiah Milkey, Som Sagar, Aditya Taparia, Xinyuan Liu, Jiqing Wen, Ransalu Senanayake; Arizona State University

3rd Decentralized Value Assessment During Foraging in Ants: Insights for Swarm Robotics 
Amrit Kaur, Anoushka Dasgupta, Theodore P. Pavlic; Arizona State University

Special Mentions

Parallel Policy-Gradient Methods for Parameter Optimization of Nonlinear Feedback Controllers
An Nguyen, Leilei Cui; University of New Mexico

Autonomous Orbital-to-Surface Targeting: Bridging Space, Environmental, and Human-AI-Robot Architectures for Planetary Field Exploration 
Sarah R. Peterson; Arizona State University

Welcome Message

On behalf of the organizing committee, we are delighted to announce the return of the Southwest Robotics Symposium (SWRS 2026). SWRS is an interdisciplinary gathering of researchers, students, industry professionals, and community members who share a passion for advancing robotics and its impact on society.

This year’s theme, “Robotics for Extreme Environments”, invites us to look ahead at how robotics will transform industries, healthcare, and human life, especially in the context of space exploration.

Topics of Interest

• Space Robotics
• Environmental & Field Robotics
• Medical, Assistive, & Wearable Robotics
• Manipulation & Locomotion
• Bio-Inspired & Soft Robotics
• Foundation Models in Robotics
• Human–AI–Robot Systems